Mentoring in Academia: Considerations for ... - Dr. William Sedlacek

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Mentoring has become widely accepted as an important process in professional development across a number of fields. In fact, theoretical and empirical research on mentoring has grown significantly in recent years. Some noteworthy areas include models of mentoring relationships, research on the mentor-protégé relationship, the process and outcome of mentoring relationships, and dysfunctional mentoring, to name a few (Barnett, 1984; Bode, 1999; Healy & Welchert, 1990; Jacobi, 1991; Johnson & Huwe, 2003; Kram, 1985; Stafford & Robbins, 1991; Wilde & Schau, 1991). This increased attention to mentoring has improved the quantity and, more importantly, the quality of the research being conducted on mentoring. Therefore, it appears that mentoring is an important construct worthy of further discussion. Because of the diversity of arenas within which mentoring can occur, we believe that it is important to limit our work to retain a sharp focus. Hence, this chapter will concentrate on mentoring in academic settings, specifically the student-faculty relationship. Within academia, student-faculty relationships tend to be more formalized, with the most common type being the advisor-advisee relationship in graduate school (Schlosser & Gelso, 2001; Schlosser, Knox, Moskovitz, & Hill, 2003; Schlosser, Talleyrand, Lyons, Kim, & Johnson, 2005). Research has shown that students almost always have an advisor (Schlosser & Gelso, 2001), but only 50 to 66 percent report having a mentor (Atkinson, Casas, & Neville, 1994; Clark, Harden, & Johnson, 2000; Cronan-Hillix, Davidson, Cronan-Hillix, & Gensheimer, 1986; Hollingsworth & Fassinger, 2002; Johnson, Koch, Fallow, & Huwe, 2000). So, while our focus is on mentoring, it is important to note that many mentors are also advisors, and researchers
have speculated that positive advising relationships and mentoring relationships are quite similar (Schlosser & Gelso, 2001; Schlosser & Gelso, in press). In addition to focusing on academic settings, we are also limiting our work to mentoring relationships in graduate training. Although mentoring relationships can and do occur between student and faculty members at all levels of higher education, we are focusing on mentoring in graduate school for several reasons. First, the extant research on student-faculty mentoring is overwhelmingly focused on the graduate-level mentoring relationship. Second, student-faculty mentoring relationships are an inherent part of the graduate training models for many disciplines. As such, graduate school is typically viewed as an extension of the apprentice-master model of learning a trade; as such, it naturally follows that the relationship between mentor and protégé is a variable of critical importance. Third, graduate-level mentoring relationships are qualitatively different than those at the undergraduate level. Mentors are likely to be more invested in their graduate student protégés than their undergraduate ones because (a) the relationship will be longer with a graduate student protégé, (b) many graduate student protégés will become colleagues with their mentor after graduation (Schlosser et al., 2003), and (c) graduate student protégés come to their mentoring relationships with more complex and sophisticated thinking abilities than do their undergraduate counterparts. For all of these reasons, we are focusing on graduate-level mentoring relationships. That being said, some of our conclusions may be applicable to the undergraduate mentor-protégé relationship. Readers interested in undergraduate mentoring and diversity issues are directed to the relevant literature (e.g., Good, Halpin, & Halpin, 2000; Grant-Thompson & Atkinson, 1997; Kim, Goto, Bai, Kim, & Wong, 2001; Santos & Reigadas, 2002).
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Page 7 and 8: eing faced by nontraditional studen
Page 9 and 10: dealing with sexism, gender-role st
Page 11 and 12: counterparts at HBCUs. This implied
Page 13 and 14: explore the supervisory relationshi
Page 15 and 16: development, but in human developme
Page 17 and 18: within the Asian American populatio
Page 19 and 20: Major differences between U.S. and
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Page 23 and 24: mutual development. It is a bicultu
Page 25 and 26: Clark, R. A., Harden, S. L., & John
Page 27 and 28: Johnson, W. B. (2003). A framework
Page 29 and 30: practitioners toward Asian American
Page 31 and 32: Sedlacek, W. E. (1996). An empirica
Page 33 and 34: Variable Variable Name 1 Positive S
Page 35 and 36: Does the protégé assume he/she ca
Page 37 and 38: Variable #5: AVAILABILITY OF STRONG
Page 39 and 40: Variables #7: COMMUNITY INVOLVEMENT

Mentoring in Academia: Considerations for ... - Dr. William Sedlacek

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